# Pipe smoking and hypertension?



## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

Sorry, we seem to be having a few of these grim health-related posts recently, but I've been getting bad blood pressure numbers for a while now. Funny, all my other numbers are good, not overweight, not anywhere close to being diabetic, eat quite well, swim regularly -- but I get lousy numbers for this one. I spoke to a cardiologist about it a couple of days ago, he said that occasional pipe smoking is nothing like the same risk factor as cigarettes. I like his attitude. Still, I'd like to know if there's any well researched articles specifically on the issue of the impact of pipe smoking (and cigars, I suppose, although I only do a cigar every three months or so). Can anyone point me in the right direction?


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## RJpuffs (Jan 27, 2008)

The only report I know of was one from a decade or two ago - when the US Surgeon General concluded that (exclusive) pipe smokers had a life expectancy of 110% (that is, they outlived even the non-smokers). Immediately after - all reports focused only on cigarette smokers and bleat on about their high mortality rates.


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## mikebjrtx (May 21, 2012)

Take your blood pressure yourself several times a day and record it with a note about what was going on. My blood pressure goes up when I'm sick or upset and I don't go to the doctor when I'm well and happy. you'll find out if it's high all the time or if it fluctuates and what causes it.


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

mikebjrtx said:


> Take your blood pressure yourself several times a day and record it with a note about what was going on. My blood pressure goes up when I'm sick or upset and I don't go to the doctor when I'm well and happy. you'll find out if it's high all the time or if it fluctuates and what causes it.


Hmm, interesting. I've heard that people tend to over-emphasize the impact of emotional states on blood pressure, it's got much less to do with short term stress than they imagine. It does go up when you get in a rage or something, but it goes down again to a base level quite quickly. But you're right, I've got one of those little machines, I've been checking a few times every day and it does swing a lot, from "normal" to "severe" and back again. I did tell myself that I'd stop smoking entirely until I got it under control, but that only lasted ... 13 days. Haha. I checked it while I was actually smoking a pipe, it was about 10 points higher during the act, but it came back down about half an hour later. I'm a bit sad about being told not to eat salty food. I can go without sugar and sweets, but no salt? I don't think so. Well, I'm trying to have a healthier breakfast and lunch, but letting myself enjoy whatever I want for dinner. You gotta be realistic about the changes you can make in your life, and no spicy, salty curries just isn't gonna happen. I think that's probably true for the pipe, too. Still, I'd like to know the science of it.


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## WyoBob (Mar 6, 2007)

Do a search: study where salt restricted people had a higher death rate

One result: FDA Warned on Dangers of Salt Restriction

"This is good, this is bad" from the "experts" drive me up a wall. How many times has coffee switched positions in the last 30 years? Unless something happened today that I'm unaware of, coffee is still good for you (unless it's bad):dunno:.

I'm going to be really upset if, when on my deathbed, the experts come out with, "we've discovered that chewing Skoal leads to a longer life, cures baldness and leads to a flat belly and enhanced "performance" well into the low hundreds." (I quit Skoal 7 years ago after 40 years of chewing.)


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

WyoBob said:


> Do a search: study where salt restricted people had a higher death rate


Hehe. WyoBob, with you and my pipe-tolerant cardiologist, I have an excellent support team. Come to think of it, my grand-father was a doc. While he didn't smoke because he only had something like half a lung left from a bout with tuberculosis in the pre-antibiotic era, he was contemptuous of all dietary restrictions except "don't make a pig of yourself". He ate whatever was served, drank coffee, wine and cocktails, and lived to be 88, back in the day when that seemed, like, incredibly old and you considered yourself lucky to get in your three score and ten.

I also remember a great article in the NYTimes years ago, entitled "What if it's all been a big, fat lie?" It was partly about the new evidence that the benefits of low fat diets were vastly exaggerated, but even more about the horrified reaction of the public health / communications gang, who basically howled the report down without reading it, just because it contradicted everything they'd invested their careers in for the past couple of decades. Bah. I'm going to have a cup of coffee and a pipe, catch ya later.


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## Stonedog (Mar 9, 2011)

RJpuffs said:


> The only report I know of was one from a decade or two ago - when the US Surgeon General concluded that *(exclusive) pipe smokers had a life expectancy of 110%* (that is, they outlived even the non-smokers). Immediately after - all reports focused only on cigarette smokers and bleat on about their high mortality rates.


Is this right?

I've had a few acquaintances pass from cancer-related complications lately and I've been having second thoughts about continuing with the hobby. A link to this report (maybe with in a sticky) might be an interesting addition to this forum.


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

Stonedog said:


> Is this right?


I read a great short story a while back, with the guy who was going to eat more fish because he was fretting about his cholesterol levels. On about page 23, he choked to death when a fish bone got stuck in his throat.


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## WyoBob (Mar 6, 2007)

Irfan said:


> I read a great short story a while back, with the guy who was going to eat more fish because he was fretting about his cholesterol levels. On about page 23, he choked to death when a fish bone got stuck in his throat.


Well, thank goodness, he didn't die of hear disease at least.


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Stonedog said:


> Is this right?
> 
> I've had a few acquaintances pass from cancer-related complications lately and I've been having second thoughts about continuing with the hobby. A link to this report (maybe with in a sticky) might be an interesting addition to this forum.


I have seen that report, so it definitely exists. I'm sure you can google it. I've put it posts several times here.

As for the hypertension -- chocolate is the most pleasant answer I can suggest. *Dark* chocolate and lots of it, I kid you not. Check it out.


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Back awhile, weren't you talking about losing weight/getting in shape? With that in mind, one of the amazingly large number of serious side effects of aspartame is hypertension. If diet soft drinks were/are part of your regimen, it's not a stretch to say they might be the source of your problem. (Aspartame is a neurotoxin that does bad stuff to you. Those were some smart people who came up with the cash to bribe the FDA regulators and Congress to make sure they could make a bundle off poisoning people, eh? If it made you feel good too, it would have been banned long ago.)


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

I just remembered a weird study I read some years back -- people who stopped smoking cigarettes between after 40 and before 50, who smoked a pack a day or more, lived longer than people who never smoked at all. Obviously, it's a select group of people who quit in that range, almost surely consisting of a high proportion of people who are ready to become more fit and take care of themselves, so it isn't quite as post hoc, propter hoc as it appears on the surface, EXCEPT that they noted that this group had less body fat and less fat in their internal organs and around their hearts than non-smokers of the same age. In other words, if you smoke cigarettes early on *but quit in time*, there's some possibility that it's actually GOOD for you in the long run. Now THAT would REALLY drive the TobakNazis bonkers if true! :lol:


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## Lord Wigglybottom (Sep 19, 2008)

freestoke said:


> Back awhile, weren't you talking about losing weight/getting in shape? With that in mind, one of the amazingly large number of serious side effects of aspartame is hypertension. If diet soft drinks were/are part of your regimen, it's not a stretch to say they might be the source of your problem. (Aspartame is a neurotoxin that does bad stuff to you. Those were some smart people who came up with the cash to bribe the FDA regulators and Congress to make sure they could make a bundle off poisoning people, eh? If it made you feel good too, it would have been banned long ago.)


Too right! Asparthame actually converts to a type of formaldehyde when brought up to around body temperature. Also, there are some independent studies and articles floating around out there that mention a kind of sympathetic insulin release in response to just the taste of something sweet which is just the kind of thing someone trying to lower their body fat % is trying to avoid. In terms of changing body composition, increasing insulin sensitivity and tuning up the machine, IMO artificial sweeteners are one of the biggest saboteurs of progress (next to wheat, soy, and corn) of some of the chaps and ladies I've helped out with their fitness endeavours.

I'm gonna stop on this before I build up too much steam and get way off topic. Definitely going to have to look for some studies regarding pipe smoking and hypertension though- I can't possibly see how it could cause it considering just how relaxing a pipe at the end of the day is...but hey, stranger things have happened.


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

Regarding aspartame, I hold to the general rule that anything designed as an artificial replacement for something half-way natural that is meant to be bad for you 1) tastes like crap, and 2) turns out to be worse than the original product. I'm thinking of all artificial sweeteners, replacement salt, low alcohol beer, margarine and decaffeinated coffee. Like a friend of mine said about low-tar ciggies, they are designed for people who fall for BOTH kinds of advertising. Also, these products are just intrinsically uncool. If you wanna give those things up, then give 'em up, don't pussy foot around. Drink water, not Diet Coke.

Yeah, I did lose a lot of weight over the last year, about 30lbs or so. I think it was pipe smoking that helped me do that, a couple of pipes in the evening sometimes replaced a large dinner. I thought that was just my own private eccentricity, but I did see an abstract from some medical journal saying that on average smokers have a slightly _lower_ blood pressure than non-smokers. The researchers were trying to unravel that mystery, and one of the ideas that they came up with was that smokers on average weigh a few kilos less than non-smokers, which contributed to the low BP.

All in all, it's all a lot more ambiguous than people often think, isn't it?

Freestoke, I've always believed that some good dark chocolate with a cup of good coffee in the evening has many fine benefits. If it turns out to help with blood pressure, that will be an added bonus.


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## gahdzila (Apr 29, 2010)

I don't have a link, but I have also seen the study saying pipe smokers live longer. IIRC, it's quite old (the late 1960's?), but that doesn't necessarily invalidate it. Plus, there is very little scientific research out there on pipe/cigar smokers who do not inhale. If you do inhale, my guess is that your risks are probably similar to cigarette smokers.

Doctors recommend low salt diets to virtually everyone. That's because they don't have to eat the crap. There's *anecdotal* evidence that a low salt diet *might* be helpful in patients with existing hypertension.....there's very little true scientific data proving it. And there is some data that says a low salt diet isn't helpful at all. 

I think it's a really really bad idea to offer or accept medical advice in a forum like this, so I won't comment specifically on Irfan's situation.


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## Fuzzy (Jun 19, 2011)

Back in the day, when I had a job and actually worked, I could feel the tension and stress being released when I sat outside and enjoyed a bowl or cigar.

Of course, I grew up in a different era and like my parents, just lived and did not put to much stock in doctors or their advice. Both of my parents smoked cigarettes, pipes and cigars at some point in time. Mom passed at 88 and Pop passed at 96. I hope to make it to my 70's. A shorter life span for me, but I live in a more polluted and stressful environment.


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

gahdzila said:


> Doctors recommend low salt diets to virtually everyone. That's because they don't have to eat the crap. There's *anecdotal* evidence that a low salt diet *might* be helpful in patients with existing hypertension.....there's very little true scientific data proving it. And there is some data that says a low salt diet isn't helpful at all.


When I was in the service, I shared an apartment with an officer in the Public Health Service who worked at the CDC. At the time, there was a giant "no salt" mania several years under weigh. The CDC produced an internal report that he brought back to the apartment for me to read (he did that a lot), that indicated that otherwise healthy people on low salt diets were dying at an elevated rate. The reason? Low blood pressure, leading to fainting at the wheel of car, falling down stairs, falling off ladders, etc., plus the same neurological problems low salt gives people who have heat stroke. Admittedly, they were people who had taken things to an extreme, but still, as they say, everything in moderation.


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

gahdzila said:


> I think it's a really really bad idea to offer or accept medical advice in a forum like this, so I won't comment specifically on Irfan's situation.


I tend to agree, but I like hearing people's anecdotal experiences and opinions. I know the standard advice is "Consult with your physician" -- fine, except every doc I've spoken to has a different opinion, and it's often not clear what justifies that difference. It seems like that disclaimer has more to do with legal liability than because doctors are really an authoritative source of info. I suppose I'm happy to have finally found a doctor whose opinions more or less coincide with my own prejudices. While I'm happy to hear people's experiences, I was actually looking to see if there were any well designed, statistical studies specifically addressing pipe smoking. Seems that the answer is that some work, but not very much, has been done on it. So in the end, we have to trust our intuition. I do know that unlike ciggies, a pipe doesn't make me feel crappy, doesn't make me short of breath, doesn't seem to impact my ability to swim laps so long as I don't have a pipe for about half an hour before (straight after is another story. A pool-side pipe is a fine pleasure).


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## RJpuffs (Jan 27, 2008)

Stonedog said:


> Is this right?
> 
> I've had a few acquaintances pass from cancer-related complications lately and I've been having second thoughts about continuing with the hobby. A link to this report (maybe with in a sticky) might be an interesting addition to this forum.


I saved the PDF ... and put it somewhere safe ... now to find it.

Will get back to you ...


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## zx7rider (Jul 6, 2012)

My grandfather has be a doctor for a million years. He's been my fiance's doctor, her mother's doctor, and her mother's family's doctor and of course, mine and my family's. If you ask almost anyone in town who their doctor is, no matter the age, %50 of the time it's him. He smokes a pipe. That's the only proof I need that pipe smoking isn't that bad.


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## gahdzila (Apr 29, 2010)

http://pipedia.org/docs/Pipe_Smoking_Health.pdf


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## Jogi (Dec 4, 2009)

Sorry! Double Post, my internet acting up a bit...


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## Jogi (Dec 4, 2009)

This helped many of my dad's chronic-hypertensive friends get their blood pressures under control, while being able to cut back on medicine with the doc's approval, so I think it can be useful for you too.

I'm assuming you consume cereal for breakfast, so it won't be too difficult to replace your current cereal with *oatmeal or plain old barley porridge*. *Not the quick cook types* which have additives or have been chemically treated to aid cooking, but the old school, honest-to-goodness oatmeal/porridge which takes anywhere between 5-15 min to cook.

Just cook it in boiling water for the required time, add milk (again real milk, not those sad, chemical-laden excuses of a milk) to your liking and *sweeten with honey* to taste. To enhance the flavor, a pinch of cinnamon works wonders and it's good for you too. To save time, you can do the cooking the night before, this also improves the overall taste and texture of the cereal too.

Other than that:

Also try to replace the food/cooking oil you use in your household, to Olive Oil.

A cap of Cod-liver Oil or any fish oil a day, also helps with your heart and your overall health.

Learning a few breathing exercises(which you can do anywhere, anytime) is also helpful.

Walking more often, *reducing* your fat and salt intake will also help.

Since these are diet and daily-life fixes, they will work slowly *but* surely. You'll see the events of spiking numbers less and less frequently. I myself am a tachycardiac, meaning my heartbeat will, on random occasions, spike from 70s to 150+ for a couple minutes and then back to normal, just like the flick of a switch. The oatmeal tip has worked for me quite well even though I'm off of exercise for the past 3 or 4 months, only the routine walking about...

Hope this longish post isn't too much of a bore :smile:


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

Jogi said:


> This helped many of my dad's chronic-hypertensive friends get their blood pressures under control, while being able to cut back on medicine with the doc's approval, so I think it can be useful for you too.


Thanks, Jogi. I already do most of those things, give or take and minus the breathing exercises. But I remember when I first got really bad numbers, I went on a dramatic life style change thing for three months, did all the right things, lose weight, eat vegetables, lower salt and so on and so on and so on. I then did the test again: the numbers barely budged. The doc said that if you have serious hypertension (stage 2, >160/100), life style changes just won't get you back to the normal range by themselves, you're looking at meds. The lifestyle changes might just mean you might take lower dosages. Still, the meds are no sweat, just like taking a vitamin in the morning. I don't get any side effects, and they seem to bring the numbers down by about 20 points on either side of the slash mark, so I guess it's ok. And I've discovered I just plain like swimming and walking, so it's not like a big imposition to keep on doing both of them. Okay, enough of my medical issues. Haha! I've given out more about this on a public forum than I'd ever tell anyone I work with! I suppose behind a half-way anonymous handle, it's ok ....


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Jogi said:


> ...add milk (again real milk, not those sad, chemical-laden excuses of a milk)...


Now you're just being cruel. I LOVE MILK! When I was a young kid, I used to milk my grandfather's Guernsey cow (yep, one cow), and always preferred Guernsey store-bought to the other kinds. (RIP Golden Guernsey. ) As it happens, a mere few thousand years back, the Holstein line of milk cattle developed a protein in their milk to which humans are generally allergic. Unluckily, Holstein's, despite the poorer flavor, allergic protein and lower butterfat content of their milk, are much larger than Guernseys, so they produce a lot more milk per cow and are far more profitable. (To be clear, Guernsey's do NOT have the allergic protein.) Factory production of milk gradually shifted away from Guernseys until Guernsey cattle are rare and Guernsey milk almost impossible to come by. Add to this the laughable "pasteurized milk" laws, originally intent on getting rid of tuberculosis, and milk in the United States is a shadow of real milk. In many states, like New York, non-pasteurized milk is illegal to sell -- period. The only way to get hold of it is to buy into a herd of cattle and participate in a group buy, so to speak. You even have to go pick up the milk yourself, although the group buy allows people who actually own the farm and take care of the herd to milk them for you. Pretty expensive operation. Basically, pasteurizing milk ranks right up there with stupidest laws ever passed. It's FAR cheaper to make sure your cows don't have TB! DUH!! 
The milk in England was great, too, because it wasn't pasteurized, it was from "Tuberculin Tested" herds. In other words, they did the smart thing to get TB out of the milk and the US did the STUPID thing. So like the US mentality -- WHO CARES IF TB IS IN THE MILK!? WE'LL KILL IT, EVEN IF IT MAKES THE MILK TASTE LIKE CRAP.

I really miss good milk. About the best I can do to make it taste anything like real milk is to buy "regular" milk and add a little cream to it to get it up to a drinkable 5% butterfat.


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## Jogi (Dec 4, 2009)

Irfan said:


> ...The doc said that if you have serious hypertension (stage 2, >160/100), life style changes just won't get you back to the normal range by themselves, you're looking at meds. The lifestyle changes might just mean you might take lower dosages...


That's very right sir... Diet fixes should be considered as the like of Preventive Maintenance... If however, one unfortunately develops a medical condition, then the doc's word has the highest priority, with these tips taking the backseat. In such a case, the best these can do is to help one stay fine with low dosage meds...

I hope this issue gets sorted out and you're able to enjoy your hobby with as much peace of mind as before. :thumb:


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## Jogi (Dec 4, 2009)

freestoke said:


> ...and milk in the United States is a shadow of real milk....
> 
> I really miss good milk. About the best I can do to make it taste anything like real milk is to buy "regular" milk and add a little cream to it to get it up to a drinkable 5% butterfat.


You people are not alone Jim. Being a developing nation does kinda have a *few* benefits; we can *still* find unadulterated, "unfrankensteined" food- like nature intended it to be, in a few shops in a city. *BUT* milk companies are messing up with milk like crazy. The Law *essentially *defines milk as " a white liquid with 3.5% fat" so being a milk "manufacturer", you get an open playing field... There weer reports in the news about companies mixing stuff like Urea!!! in milk to keep its Specific Gravity equal to the official standard!! I've heard people say that you simply can't stand the stench if a milk truck of any of these Big Milk names drives by you...

I mentioned it since I think Irfan is currently in Indonesia, so it *may* be possible for him to get pure (organic) food stuff from small local or farmers' markets.

Sorry for the Off Topic rant Irfan :frown:

:focus:


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

Jogi said:


> Sorry for the Off Topic rant Irfan :frown: :focus:


No problem. About a decade ago, I lived in a small town here where the milk was DEFINITELY unpasteurized, although probably not really TB tested either. The local wisdom was that you should simmer it to near boiling and drink it hot. I don't know the science of it, but it tasted good. The stuff from the shops in Jakarta is crappy, sold in little boxes that somehow stop the milk from going off no matter how long it remains on the shelf in a barely air conditioned shop. I sometimes put it in tea or coffee, but you can't pretend it's good milk.

I don't know about "unfrankensteined" food in a developing country. The chicken farms I've seen in the country certainly don't look like anything to boast about. Vegetables in the markets these days are just as likely to be cheap Chinese imports as local stuff, they are cheaper and look bigger and brighter. You actually pay a premium for local vegetables in a country where 50% of the population is a farmer. Crazy. You can get really good premium local coffee, vegies, goat meat, chicken that runs around the yard and the eggs they lay, but you gotta put some effort into looking for it.


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## Jogi (Dec 4, 2009)

By "frankensteined" food, I mean natural food products which have been scientifically modified to give more, bigger yield, or treated in any artificial way. Just an example, I was watching Peach Cobbler recipe on YT, and the lemon the lady used in the recipe was the size of our orange!! whereas our lemons are the size of, well, lemons :smile:

Now that big one no doubt has lots more juice, but I'm quite sure it has also lost its natural sour citrus taste. Similarly, a farm-chicken is ready for market in around 5-6 weeks, whereas a chicken ground on natural food (grain, little bugs etc.) will take no *less *than 3 months to gain the same size and weight... No doubt this is necessary to fulfill the food requirements, but it also carries quite a lot long term risks... :dunno:


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

Jogi said:


> By "frankensteined" food, I mean natural food products which have been scientifically modified to give more, bigger yield, or treated in any artificial way. Just an example, I was watching Peach Cobbler recipe on YT, and the lemon the lady used in the recipe was the size of our orange!! whereas our lemons are the size of, well, lemons :smile:


By that definition, the Chinese imports are DEFINITELY frankensteined, no way you could get a carrot that big and orange without serious chemical treatment. Juicy, yes, but tasteless. I don't know about your place, but in Indonesia, there was a huge push in the 1980s and after for new breeds of miracle rice and vegetables, with a much bigger emphasis on large, monoculture farms. Sure, it boosted food production, most years the country is a net exporter of rice and such, but the old people say the older grains tasted better. I'm happy to say that the rules are lightening up a bit now, and their is a demand from the middle class for better local food, so there are all sorts of farms trying to produce it for them. In general, the transportation infrastructure here is pretty lousy, though, which means that it's often cheaper to import than to freight stuff or ship stuff from the other provinces. When I first got here, buying a bright red imported apple was like an expensive gift for a girl you liked. Now they are sold by the side of the street and you have to look hard for the smaller, slightly sour but much tastier local ones.


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## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

gahdzila said:


> I think it's a really really bad idea to offer or accept medical advice in a forum like this, so I won't comment specifically on Irfan's situation.


Yeah, it's kind of like wandering into a cheap diner and ordering the Blue Plate Special.


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

MarkC said:


> Yeah, it's kind of like wandering into a cheap diner and ordering the Blue Plate Special.


When I lived in San Francisco, right before going into the service, I played the bon vivant to the max, taking a few dates out to the Blue RIBBON restaurants downtown and round about the area. Then one day I read in the newspaper an article how these restaurants, where I'd been dropping big coins for elegant dining, were serving FROZEN "gourmet" TV DINNERS, rearranged with stunning artistry on fancy plates. Talk about high blood pressure! :frown:


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## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

The best food I ever had in San Francisco was found in cheap dives in Chinatown.


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## RJpuffs (Jan 27, 2008)

I found the PDF - its the 1979 SG full report. I can't attach it apparently 80 Meg is too large. So, clever beastie that I am, I have placed it on the TobaccoCellar site:
http://www.TobaccoCellar.com/SG1979report.pdf

Relevant sections:
(PDF page numbers)
Page 40 - straight statement that pipe smokers do NOT have a significant increase in mortality.

Page 628 - "In contrast to this finding, several prospective epidemiological investigations, Hammond and Horn (52), Best (II), Kahn (69), and Hammond (50), have reported higher death rates for *ex-pipe and ex-cigar smokers than for current pipe and cigar smokers*."

Page 634 - comparative mortality ratios, pipe (only) smokers have only a fractionally higher rate.

Page 636 - mortality ratios by quantity smoked, pipers are almost the same as non-smokers!

Page 637 - hahaha 1-4 or >9 pipe bowls a day OUTLIVED non-smokers!

Page 661 - Conclusion: "Pipe and cigar smokers in the United States as a group experience overall mortality rates that are slightly higher than those of nonsmokers, but at rates substantially lower than those of cigarette smokers."

Now I shall load a bowl and ruminate on lost and hidden science while I puff and barbeque some chicken.


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

RJpuffs said:


> I found the PDF


Yep, this is the one, not the expurgated 2003 version!:lol:


> Page 637 - hahaha 1-4 or >9 pipe bowls a day OUTLIVED non-smokers!


Thanks...I needed that after all the :tsk: :tsk: :tsk: going on in the how-much-is-too-much thread. (Who'd have thought I'd be excoriated for smoking too many pipefuls on a pipe forum? :lol: )


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## Irfan (Dec 18, 2011)

RJpuffs said:


> Page 637 - hahaha 1-4 or >9 pipe bowls a day OUTLIVED non-smokers!


Hehe. I used to smoke around 5-7 pipes a day, which seems to fall into the danger zone. I should either start using larger pipes, so I can get back to four, or smaller ones, so I can increase to more than nine. Haha.


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## uli2000 (Apr 21, 2009)

Irfan said:


> Hehe. I used to smoke around 5-7 pipes a day, which seems to fall into the danger zone. I should either start using larger pipes, so I can get back to four, or smaller ones, so I can increase to more than nine. Haha.


I think your answer is right under your nose, literally. Nicotine raises blood pressure, and thought I didnt find the exact half life of it, it looks like it can be detected in the bloodstream 2-4 days after use. Pipe tobacco averages about 17 mg nicotine/gram. I'd guess an average bowl contains maybe 1-2 mg of nicotine, and if we look at the high end, you may be consuming 14mg a day. Nicotine becomes toxic at levels of 30-60mg. If you can cut back, try that, and see what effect that may have on your blood pressure. I dont know what tobaccos have the highest or lowest nicotine levels, but I know I always got a much bigger nicotine buzz from strong blends than I did from relatively mild blends like flavored burleys.


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